Chop Socky: Cinema Hong Kong

If you, like me, are something of an ardent fan of Chinese, martial arts films from their heyday (the 60s & 70s), then this 2003 documentary (appropriately called "Chop Socky") should be of some special interest to you.

Through interviews with Hong Kong movie directors, film historians, and actors (such as Jackie Chan, and Jet Li), as well as endless film clips of Chinese marital arts movies of yesterday, the viewer soon learns (amongst other things) all about the painstaking work involved in choreographing the amazing, synchronized sword fights, etc. that were showcased in many of these action-packed pictures.

Always using gallons of fake blood, along with some rapid-fire film editing, these ultra-violent pictures featured story-lines that, often enough, played out very much like heavy-duty, Bejing operas.

Narrated by Jim Nicholson, Chop Socky had a very brief running time of only 55 minutes.